Football in the Ruhr area
The football in the Ruhr plays a significant role in German football events . A total of 16 German championships and eleven titles in the DFB-Pokal were won by teams from the Ruhr area . Borussia Dortmund was the first German club to win a European Cup in 1966 , in 1997 Dortmund won the Champions League and FC Schalke 04 the UEFA Cup . A total of seven clubs from the Ruhr area have played in the Bundesliga so far, currently (2019) there are two clubs in the top division with Dortmund and Schalke. Both clubs play an important role in German football and are also popular across the region.
History of football in the Ruhr area
Formation of the first football clubs in the area
The Witten Football Club was founded in 1892 as the first pure football club in the Ruhr area (and fifth oldest in Germany) . As in many other cities in the country and contrary to the popular cliché, the first active footballers in the area were not workers, but students from the upper class, who "imported" them from England in the years before and who initially only became popular at grammar schools and secondary schools in West Germany now practiced together in their free time.
How and when exactly football found its way into physical education in German schools is difficult to reconstruct. Although the first forerunners of football and rugby had emerged in England as early as 1845, gymnastics was the main activity in educational establishments in Germany until the 1870s (and afterwards) . Nevertheless, football became known on the continent in the 1860s through English emigrants whose children played the sport in their schools and boarding schools and asked their German friends to play along. After the Braunschweiger Gymnasium became the first German school to offer voluntary ball games in 1872, football gradually spread throughout the country and was integrated into lessons in many places.
Parallel to the pure football clubs, which were founded as organizations of high school students based on the Witten model, many football departments also emerged in the region's gymnastics clubs in the 1890s. The first major club in the Ruhr area, Duisburger SpV , was originally created as a game department of the Duisburg gymnastics club from 1848 and only separated from the parent club in 1900, eight years after the department was founded.
In the early years of sport in clubs, there were no binding rules, neither for the implementation of the game itself nor with regard to club competitions. The first association in West Germany was the Rheinische Spielverband, which initially consisted of nine founding members, but quickly developed into the most influential association in the region and already two years later as the Rheinisch-Westfälischer Spielverband (from 1907 then: Westdeutscher Spielverband, for short WSV) was responsible for the whole of western Germany. Regular championship rounds in West Germany were played from 1902, initially in three districts, each with three performance classes.
Just three years later, so many new clubs had joined the association that a new division of the districts became necessary. The Ruhr area was divided for the first time, the western part ( belonging to the Rhineland ) was assigned to the Ruhr district, the Westphalian part in the east to the Mark district . As a result, there were initially several first leagues in the association's territory and the strongest teams in the region only competed against each other in finals or cup games. For this reason, the establishment of a "league class" was decided in 1909, in which the ten best clubs in the districts should play the West German championship; According to the strength of the teams at that time, all teams came from the Rhineland, in the founding season, in addition to Duisburger SV, only Prussia, Duisburg and the Essener Turnerbund from the Ruhr area were represented. Despite this bundling of forces, only Duisburger SV reached a final for the German championship in the years before the war, in which they lost 3-1 to VfB Leipzig in 1913 .
Nevertheless, football also developed rapidly in the Ruhr area. As early as 1914, 603 clubs belonged to the West German Association, a good third of which came from the area. However, the tradition initially continued that the active people came predominantly from the middle and upper classes and only a few clubs were founded in the immediate vicinity of the working class. There are many reasons for this, but they are mainly due to the newly defined role of sport in the bourgeoisie. While gymnastics had developed into a sport of the conservatives at least since the founding of the empire, the progressive part of the bourgeoisie practiced more English-influenced sports such as football, tennis or rowing around the turn of the century . In addition, the reduction in working hours for employees from 1891 resulted in the non-working Sunday, which was time for social life, especially in sports. However, the conflict between gymnasts and footballers came to a head in the years before the First World War , and teachers and authorities often enforced bans on the game.
In the end, football was able to spread, not least thanks to its officials' good connections with the military. Football was often played in the army as a means of physical training, and the German Football Association and its regional associations had already known themselves as advocates of war at an early stage. Although the championship rounds were inactive during the war, the DFB had announced a war cup for which the few athletes who were not drafted played. At the same time, regimental and company championships were held in the army itself, which contributed to the further popularization of this sport.
After the First World War - football becomes a sport for the masses
Politically and socially, the workers in the mines and industrial plants were largely isolated at the time of the Empire. The newly built residential areas for the industrial proletariat emerged outside the inner cities of the Ruhr area, which were dominated by employees and traders. Accordingly, few contacts arose between the bourgeoisie and the working class; In addition, the immigrants from East Prussia and Poland mostly stayed to themselves and settled mainly where large groups of them already lived.
Under these conditions, the proletariat was reluctant to get enthusiastic about football. It was only after the turn of the century, a good ten years after the founding of the first upper-class football club, that workers ' football began - initially in the form of street teams and subdivisions of church youth clubs that were located in the vicinity of the workers' settlements around the mines of the district. The mostly young athletes were influenced by the hustle and bustle on the sports fields, where championship games were regularly held after the game association was founded in 1902.
The growing number of active working-class soccer players benefited from the advantages soccer had over other prominent sports of the time. Not only was the financial outlay for the unorganized "Pöhlen" limited, many workers also had the necessary skills to practice the sport, which required both physical assertiveness and willingness to cooperate. Nevertheless, until the Weimar Republic, it was impossible for many workers to join a “real” soccer club - the prices for jerseys and soccer shoes were many times higher than the wages for a shift. And in the not uncommon cases where workers' clubs were founded, mostly with financial support from innkeepers, and asked to join the WSV, they were refused entry - often for political reasons, but sometimes also to secure the game operations, as many clubs only for few months existed.
With the new role of the working class in the course of the November Revolution of 1918, the rise of football to a popular sport accelerated again massively. Not only did the working masses receive political freedoms, they also benefited from the social gains of the time; In particular, the introduction of free weekends for workers in industry made sport a pleasure for the entire population. By the 1930s, the DFB recorded an increase in membership from 161,000 in 1913 to over a million members, and the German Youth Force was founded as a Catholic sports association and works teams were set up in many places.
In addition to an explosion in the number of active players, the great success of football as a public sport began in the 1920s. Because many of the top clubs were still closely anchored in their local milieu, the audience could easily identify with "their" club. As a result, the number of spectators soared, new stadiums such as the Wedaustadion in Duisburg or the Essen stadium at Uhlenkrug were built. In addition, the press discovered the sport; the first soccer magazines appeared, and in 1926 one of the first soccer encounters was broadcast on the radio with the game Schwarz-Weiß Essen against VfL Osnabrück .
From a sporting point of view, the teams in the Ruhr area between 1918 and 1930 were not yet among the absolute top performers in Germany. Although the DJK Katernberg was able to win the DJK championship twice (1921 and 1924), under the umbrella of the DFB it was not enough for any of the clubs in the area to triumph. Regionally dominated up to the end of the decade especially the clubs that were also leading in the Wilhelmine era, the Duisburger Spielverein and the Essener Turnerbund / Schwarz-Weiß Essen; from 1926, when BV Altenessen 06 was able to become Ruhr district champion, many of the workers' clubs overtook them in terms of sport. FC Schalke 04 in particular dominated football in the Revier from 1928 onwards and with four West German championships between 1929 and 1933 rose to be the most successful team in the west of the Republic. The rise of the "miners" was only interrupted by a judgment of the association, which excluded eight responsible persons and 14 players (the complete first team of the Gelsenkirchen team around Fritz Szepan and Ernst Kuzorra ) in August 1930 for violations of the amateur statute from the association. Only after protests by the public and other associations in the country was the verdict overturned in June 1931. Nevertheless, a ban on professional sport remained formally effective.
Great time of the "miners"
After the West German championship, FC Schalke 04 reached a final for the German championship for the first time in the summer of 1933, but lost 3-0 to Fortuna Düsseldorf in Cologne. Nevertheless, the Gelsenkirchen team had long since developed into Germany's best team in terms of play, and it was only a matter of time before Schalke were the first team to bring Victoria to the area.
The rise of Schalke 04 in the 1920s had many causes. In addition to the already mentioned professionalization of the club, which was made possible financially primarily by the club's partnership with Zeche Consolidation , the Gelsenkircheners celebrated a completely new way of playing with the “ Schalker Kreisel ” for German standards. Already in the early phase of the club, when the Gelsenkircheners were still called Westfalia, Schalke made a good name for themselves locally with their fast combination football, which stood out from the " kick and rush " that many German teams played predominantly. After the First World War, Schalke kept their style of play, but the system was only perfected under "Bumbes" Schmidt , who became FC Schalke's coach in 1933.
Economically, in addition to the colliery , the city of Gelsenkirchen also played its part in Schalke's successes. Both of them helped the association financially with the construction of the Glückauf-Kampfbahn , which was built between 1927 and 1928, and provided guarantees and loans. As was customary with many workers' associations with close ties to local industry, the Zeche Consolidation commissioned the construction plans for the stadium and at the same time leased the area to the association for a small fee. Furthermore, some of the most important players were employed by the city or the mine and thus enjoyed comparatively great freedom.
Overall, Schalke won the German championship six times between 1934 and 1942 and also won the Tschammer Cup in 1937 . However, the great time of the Gelsenkircheners was overshadowed by the closeness of some of its players and officials to the National Socialist regime.
Shortly after the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 Jewish members were expelled from the association; To a report by Kicker from July 1934, in which press reports from Polish newspapers were summarized and which appeared under the title "The German Football Championship in the hands of the Poles", the club also responded with a meticulous listing of the family trees of its players and thus tried to prove that the active members are exclusively of German origin. Due to its popularity, Schalke 04 was used for Nazi propaganda purposes; Players like Szepan and Kuzorra used their popularity to advertise for the NSDAP through election calls and to demonstrate their closeness to the regime. However, the commitment of these two players to the Nazi regime remained an isolated case. An example of how a player can take advantage is the " Aryanization " of a former Jewish department store by Fritz Szepan in the autumn of 1938. However, he was one of the few NSDAP members among the active athletes of FC Schalke 04.
Not only Schalke 04 had quickly come to terms with the new balance of power. Many football associations were politically anchored in the conservative-nationalist camp during the Weimar period; and despite opening up to the workers' associations, some of the superiors in the WSV and DFB took openly revanchist positions. Confessing National Socialists such as Guido von Mengden as managing director of the WSV and later press officer of the DFB and Josef Klein , who was initially the youth representative of the associations and since 1932 a member of the Reichstag for the NSDAP , were able to hold high positions in the control center of the associations even before Hitler came to power. Correspondingly, on May 24, 1933 , the implementation of the National Socialist “ leadership principle ” began immediately through the ordinance of a uniform statute for all associations, in which the association chairman was now the association leader ; The DFB has been brought into line and as a professional office football in the National Socialist Reich Federation for Physical Education incorporated. The West German gaming association was dissolved in 1935 as part of a complete restructuring of gaming operations, at the end of which there were 16 Gauligen whose champions played in a final round for the German championship.
This restructuring of the league system resulted in a new division into different Gaue for the Ruhr area, the western part around Essen, Oberhausen and Duisburg now played in the Gauliga Niederrhein, the eastern part was assigned to the Gau Westphalia. In addition, the National Socialists now also intervened in the internal affairs of the associations and, in addition to the conformity and Aryanization, also forced association mergers within a city. The aim was to concentrate the strong players in a few clubs.
In terms of sport, the era of National Socialism led to the final dominance of the workers' associations in the Ruhr area. In addition to Schalke 04, which was able to become champion of the Gauliga Westphalia every season until 1944, “proletarian” teams such as Borussia Dortmund , VfL Bochum or Rot-Weiß Oberhausen slowly took over football dominance in their cities, which they no longer did after the war should submit. This was primarily a continuation of the trend from the twenties, but was also indirectly supported by the rulers through the forced mergers. This tendency even continued at the beginning of the war, many active workers from the workers' associations were active in the armaments industry and were relatively often released from service at the front, at least until 1942. The game operation was largely maintained afterwards; until the autumn of 1944 regular championship games were played.
The era of the Oberliga West
After the end of the war in the Ruhr area, which was completely liberated by the Allied troops in April 1945, the athletes who had returned and those who had stayed at home quickly joined forces in their clubs and painstakingly repaired the damage that their club facilities had suffered in the bombing war. Even before the clubs were officially re-admitted in September of that year, the first friendly matches took place at local level, and the first approved match between two national teams (the north competed against the south of the city) was played in Castrop-Rauxel at the beginning of July. The game was also limited to inner-city duels, the British occupying power initially only gave the green light for "local derbies". This changed for the 1946/1947 season, when Lower Rhine and Westphalia championships were held.
As the new football association for the Ruhr area, the Football Association of North Rhine-Westphalia was founded in February 1947, which one year later became the West German Football Association. The area represented included the newly founded federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia and was thus significantly smaller than that of the WSV, which was dissolved in 1935. As the top division of the WFV, the Oberliga West was set up for the 1947/1948 season , in which 13 teams were initially represented. In the summer of 1949, the league was then increased to 16 teams.
The second great era of the West began with the establishment of the Oberliga West. The most successful team of this era was Borussia Dortmund , who broke its supremacy in Ruhr area football in the final of the Westphalia Championship in 1947 with a 3-2 win against Schalke 04 and initially rose to become a serial winner in the West. However, the first final participation in the German championship was lost 3-2 in the “ Stuttgart Heat Battle ” against VfR Mannheim in 1949 , so that Rot-Weiss Essen and “Boss” Helmut Rahn were the first Ruhr area team to win the national title in 1955 . In the two following seasons, BVB was able to celebrate its first two championships, in 1958 Schalke 04 became German champions for the last time to date.
The Schalke championship of 1958 marks the end of the great days of workers' clubs in the Ruhr area. For the first time after 1913, the top clubs in the region were again represented in a uniform league; when the Oberliga West was founded in 1947, eight of the 13 participating clubs were based in the area. The multitude of derbies in the following years electrified the masses as they have not since the 1920s; the number of spectators in the new “tram league” was consistently in the five-digit range and thus far ahead of all other major leagues in Germany. Duisburg and Essen in particular were strongholds of the new league: Essen temporarily had three league clubs with Rot-Weiss , Schwarz-Weiß and Sportfreunde Katernberg , Duisburg had a total of four players in the league with Meidericher SV , Hamborn 07 , the Spielverein and DFV 08 .
In addition to the "established" workers' associations such as Schalke 04, Borussia Dortmund and Rot-Weiss Essen, the success of the smaller colliery associations in the 1950s inspired the Ruhr area. It was the special situation shortly after the end of the war that offered the colliery works associations an advantage over many other associations in the area. In addition to food, coal was particularly popular as an energy source; the mines were accordingly of great economic importance, which they also used to support local teams with natural produce. In addition, many players from clubs close to industry had been able to stay in the region until shortly before the end of the war, so that only a few active players had died and could now start playing football again. The greatest success of a pure mining team was the participation of SV Sodingen in the final round of the German championship in 1955. As a Werkself of the Mont Cenis mine, the runner-up in the Oberliga West was able to wrest a 2-2 from 1. FC Kaiserslautern, which was studded with world champions . Before that, the Sportfreunde Katernberg (1948) and the STV Horst-Emscher (1950) had also been able to qualify for the championship round, but both failed in the preliminary round.
However, the "colliery dying" that began at the end of the 1950s made long-term success for the works clubs impossible; many clubs had to let their best players move to economically more powerful clubs. As early as 1963, none of these clubs had been able to qualify for the Bundesliga ; the most successful was still Hamborn 07, which had not been able to achieve the necessary placements for participation in the Bundesliga in the last seasons of the Oberliga West. Borussia Dortmund, Schalke 04 and Meidericher SV were finally selected from the Ruhr area, and even if Borussia began the Bundesliga adventure as the reigning German champions, the great days of Ruhr area football were over for the time being.
The first years of the Bundesliga - battle for money and points
The abolition of the Oberliga West brought a deep turning point for football between Ruhr and Lippe. Almost all the clubs in the area had spoken out in favor of the introduction of the Bundesliga at the decisive meeting of the DFB Bundestag, but the critical voices had warned of the consequences for the smaller clubs in the Ruhr area in advance of the vote. Since, parallel to the establishment of the new league, the amateur or contract player statute was abolished in the first class and replaced by a new licensed player statute , the economic differences between the successful clubs in the first class and the "lagging" regional league teams were quickly cemented: those who made the leap could not make it into the elite class for economic or sporting reasons, on the one hand had to forego the financially lucrative games against the large clubs in the region (and accordingly had to struggle with rapidly falling audience numbers) and on the other hand, they had to sell their most talented players to their financially stronger rivals.
As a consequence of this "land consolidation", the most successful clubs in the respective cities developed into municipal representative associations, which finally cut themselves off from the local milieu of their time of origin and cultivated close relationships with the municipal decision-makers. In times of economic upheaval in the Ruhr area, the clubs compensated for the declining financial support from local industry and let themselves be financially supported, the Bundesliga clubs became a figurehead and advertising medium for the cities. In terms of personnel, the boundaries between associations and municipalities were also blurred in many places; not infrequently, as in the case of Walter Kliemt , who was Dortmund's chief city director and chairman of Borussia between 1968 and 1974 , the club presidents were also high-ranking administrative employees.
In terms of sport, the time in the Bundesliga began quite successfully for two of the Ruhr area clubs: Meidericher SV surprisingly ended the first season as runner-up under their coach Rudi Gutendorf , was able to manage the following seasons as well as the first-class teams from Rot-Weiss Essen and Rot- White Oberhausen, however, only finished in the lower midfield of the league. Borussia Dortmund finished fourth in the table in the first season and won the DFB Cup the following year . In 1965/1966, the black and yellow ended the season as runner-up and celebrated the greatest success in the club's history with their triumph in the European Cup Winners' Cup , which Borussia won as the first German team. With Dortmund's outsider victory in the final against Liverpool FC , however, a period of sporting failures began for BVB, which reached its low point in 1972 with relegation to the regional league.
Schalke 04 started worse in the new league. In 1964/1965 the Gelsenkirchen team escaped relegation only by increasing the league to 18 teams, and it was only the sale of the now ailing Glückauf-Kampfbahn to the city that saved the club financially. Previously, the club's chairman, Hans-Georg König, had to answer to court for tax evasion. In addition, the club hit the headlines in 1963 when, when buying the Karlsruhe national player Günter Herrmann, it violated the license fee cap of a maximum of DM 50,000 and Herrmann and Hans-Georg Lambert , who, however, only played one game for the “Knappen “Graduated, earned for twice the amount. The judgment of the DFB, which initially provided for a point deduction and a fine for both clubs, was overturned in the second instance. The fear of relegation to the equally unprofitable and unattractive Regionalliga West led to Schalke not only financial maneuvers but also a new enthusiasm for spectators. Concerns about the continued existence of the club regularly attracted 40,000 spectators to the Glückauf-Kampfbahn and thus set a new record in German football.
The Bundesliga scandal and the consequences
At the end of the 1970/71 season , the Bundesliga scandal shook the German public. The Offenbacher club president Horst Gregorio Canellas presented in celebration of his 50th birthday in June 1971, the VIPs attending a tape with recordings of conversation for shifting of games in the Bundesliga. In the following months, the control committee of the DFB around Hans Kindermann investigated the events and found in its final report that at least 18 Bundesliga games had been manipulated. Above all, the relegation-threatened teams from Kickers Offenbach and Arminia Bielefeld had used amounts of up to one million marks to bribe opposing clubs and thus secure their relegation.
From the Ruhr area, club officials and players from Schalke 04 and Rot-Weiß Oberhausen were significantly involved in the proceedings, and three players from MSV Duisburg had to answer in court. Oberhausen was involved in the relegation battle and had bought a 4-2 win against 1. FC Köln , whose goalkeeper Manfred Manglitz was one of the key figures in the affair. As a result, club president Peter Maaßen was removed from office for two years.
The Schalke 04 players gave a contradicting picture in the course of the trials. For several years, nine active members of the Gelsenkirchen team denied their participation in the Bundesliga scandal under oath and thus fought for their permission to play despite the DFB's suspension. It was not until December 1975 that those involved, with the exception of Klaus Fichtel, admitted that they had sold the game against Arminia Bielefeld in April 1971 for a total of 40,000 marks. Before the Essen district court , the players were later fined for perjury, the club then had its nickname as "FC perjury" away. Above all, it was incomprehensible why the Schalke players put their further career at risk because of comparatively ridiculous sums of money. After the relegation in 1965, which was barely avoided, those responsible in Gelsenkirchen had turned to youth work and, towards the end of the 1960s, managed to establish themselves in the league with a young team. Although the team was never better than sixth in the final standings until the 1970/1971 season, the public still trusted Schalke 04 to position itself as the third player in the Bundesliga alongside the teams from Borussia Mönchengladbach and FC Bayern Munich . The club's successes in the 1971/1972 season, when Schalke became runner-up and cup winners, were then overshadowed by the scandal and its consequences. Nevertheless, Schalke remained the strongest team in the area in the 1970s, but slipped into a crisis after another runner-up in 1977 and rose to the second division for the first time in 1981.
As a consequence of the scandal, the DFB lifted all upper limits for license player salaries and transfer fees as early as 1972 and introduced the 2nd Bundesliga in two seasons for the 1974/1975 season as a substructure for the first division. The new second division in particular was intended to close the gap between the professional and amateur sectors in order to prevent relegation from the Bundesliga from ruining a club economically too easily. The Ruhr area was regularly represented in the northern season of the second division with four to six teams, after the introduction of the single-track second division in 1981 there were mostly three clubs.
After the affair became known, interest in the Bundesliga fell rapidly across the country. The audience numbers were already on the downward trend after the second season of 1964/1965, but the scandal exacerbated the situation in the following years. The low point was reached in 1972/1973 with an average attendance of almost 16,000. An increase in numbers in the course of the 1974 World Cup was followed by a long decline from 1978 onwards, which only ended in 1986. In the Ruhr area they were traditionally better, although the clubs were far from national or international successes: Borussia Dortmund had returned to the first division in 1976, but initially remained at best mediocre and last had serious concerns about relegation in 1985/1986. MSV Duisburg had its greatest successes in the late 1970s when the Meideriches reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup . Then things went downhill, in 1982 they were relegated to the second division and in 1986 to the third division. Rot-Weiss Essen was relegated from the first division for the last time in 1977. The only constant in the Bundesliga was VfL Bochum , which was first division from 1971 onwards, but was not a big number in terms of sport either. Economically, the clubs in the region were not doing better; In addition to Dortmund and Schalke, who often walked on the edge of existence in the 1970s and 1980s, the second division clubs Rot-Weiss Essen and Westfalia Herne made headlines, some of which had their license withdrawn several times.
The nineties - new successes in the area
The main reason for the decline of top-class football in the area in the previous decades was the lack of professionalism in the structures of the clubs. Most of the board members ran their clubs on a voluntary basis without professional support and were unable to operate economically. Borussia Dortmund was the first club in the Ruhr area to adapt to the new conditions in German football at the end of the 1980s and gradually changed the club policy under President Gerd Niebaum and Manager Michael Meier : BVB was expanded by the Dortmund representative to become a nationally known brand. No longer the entrance fees, but income from television, advertising and merchandising made up the largest income in the budget.
In terms of sport, the first national successes came quickly. The BVB won the cup back in 1989 and sparked new enthusiasm among the club. Three years later, the club was runner-up under coach Ottmar Hitzfeld and reached the final of the UEFA Cup the following season. The income generated was immediately reinvested in the team that was able to bring the fourth German championship to Dortmund in 1995. After successfully defending their title in the following year, BVB won the Champions League in 1997 and became world cup winners in the same year .
The radical reorganization of the club quickly widened the gap between BVB and the other first division clubs in the region. Only Schalke 04 was able to imitate Borussia from the mid-1990s and gradually convert the club into a successful commercial enterprise. In both cases, after the sporting consolidation in the upper half of the table and successes at European level (Schalke won the 1997 UEFA Cup), investments were made equally in the quality of the team and in the stadium; This is how the Arena Auf Schalke was built in Gelsenkirchen as a new multifunctional stadium, in Dortmund the Westfalenstadion has been expanded several times and is now the largest pure football stadium in the republic. In Duisburg, Bochum or Wattenscheid , where Bundesliga football was also played after the fall of the Berlin Wall , similar plans were not crowned with success: the clubs not only lacked a big name, the number of supporters for these teams was much smaller. Only Rot-Weiss Essen had a mobilization potential comparable to Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund, but in terms of sport, RWE never got beyond the relegation battle in the second division in the nineties.
The nineties were also a successful decade for women's football in the Ruhr area. The women's Bundesliga has existed nationwide since 1990/1991 , in which FCR Duisburg , cup winners from 1998 and champions from 2000, was able to establish itself as the third force in German football. Previously, it had the KBC Duisburg brought already in the 1980s to master and cup winner honors. With the exception of SG Wattenscheid there is no club that is equally successful in men's and women's football. One reason is the formerly ignorant "smile" of the first women's teams on the part of the association and club giants who had banned the practice of sport under the umbrella of the DFB until 1970 and gave the women little support afterwards. Instead, separate clubs for women's football developed; In addition to the two Duisburg clubs, the SGS Essen should be mentioned as the current Bundesliga club. Since the introduction of the Bundesliga, the reputation of women's football has improved significantly, even if in Germany it still lags far behind the standard of men's football in terms of professionalism.
today
At the end of 2004, Borussia Dortmund got into an existence-threatening financial crisis after the club's management had invested in new purchases from the IPO in autumn 2000 (between 1998 and 2002, almost 100 million euros were spent on transfer fees alone) and in the third stage of expansion of the Westfalenstadion completely used up. Only a comprehensive restructuring concept was able to avoid bankruptcy, so that the club has recovered economically today and is back among the top guards in Germany in terms of sport. After the sixth championship in 2002, important players had to be sold in the course of economic consolidation. Adequate replacement was not brought, so that the team occupied only mediocre table positions in the following years. In the 2007/2008 season, however, they made it to the final of the DFB Cup. At the beginning of the 2008/2009 season, coach Jürgen Klopp took over Borussia and new successes could be celebrated.
In the 2009/2010 season, the club took fourth place in the table, which was equivalent to qualifying for the play-off round of the UEFA Europa League . In 2010/2011, Borussia Dortmund was the table leader from the eighth day of the match and in the end secured the championship. In the following season, the club was able to defend the championship and celebrate the double in its history for the first time by winning the DFB Cup.
FC Schalke 04 has also been struggling with considerable economic problems since 2006, which have only been resolved in the meantime by the entry of the Russian oil magnate Gazprom as the main sponsor. For the 2009/2010 season it became known that the club had built up considerable debt, which made it increasingly difficult to break even in ongoing business. In terms of sport, the club has often belonged to the top tier of the Bundesliga in recent years, even if the Gelsenkirchen team narrowly missed the German championship title several times with four runners-up in the 2000s. In 2001 and 2007 in particular, Schalke had hoped for their first title since 1958 until the last match day. In 2001, 2002 and 2011 the club won the DFB Cup.
The 2010/2011 season was the best season for Ruhr area football since the 1996/1997 season: Borussia Dortmund won the championship and FC Schalke 04 made it to the semi-finals of the Champions League and also won the DFB Cup after a final , in which the final opponent also came from the Ruhr area with MSV Duisburg and won the Supercup against Borussia Dortmund after the end of the season. In the 2011/2012 season, Borussia Dortmund won the championship and DFB Cup double for the first time in the club's history . In 2013, BVB reached the CL final .
Said two clubs are currently (as of 2019/20) the only Ruhr clubs in the Bundesliga. The VfL Bochum and MSV Duisburg , which is currently in the second division respectively in the third league play, the four Ruhr representatives complete in professional football. The diversity that existed in the past has given way to a few larger clubs. Various clubs that were successful in the past now only play at a lower level.
Clubs
This table lists all clubs that are based in the Ruhr area and will be active in one of the first four levels of the football league system in Germany in the 2019/2020 season . Second teams are not taken into account.
| club | Stadion | capacity | Founded | Hometown |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Football Bundesliga (1) | ||||
| Borussia Dortmund | Westfalenstadion | 81,360 | 1909 | Dortmund |
| FC Schalke 04 | Veltins Arena | 62,271 | 1904 | Gelsenkirchen |
| 2nd Bundesliga (2) | ||||
| VfL Bochum | Ruhrstadion | 27,599 | 1938 | Bochum |
| 3rd soccer league (3) | ||||
| MSV Duisburg | Schauinsland-Reisen-Arena | 31,500 | 1902 | Duisburg |
| Football Regionalliga West (4) | ||||
| Rot-Weiß Oberhausen | Niederrhein Stadium | 21,318 | 1904 | Oberhausen |
| Red and white food | Essen stadium | 20,650 | 1907 | eat |
| SG Wattenscheid 09 | Lohrheidestadion | 16,233 | 1909 | Wattenscheid |
| TuS Haltern | Stauseekampfbahn | 4,000 | 1882 | Haltern am See |
| VfB Homberg | PCC stadium | 3,000 | 1969 | Duisburg-Homberg |
Fan and football culture
Fan scene in the district
The importance of football in the Ruhr area goes far beyond the weekend game; Sport has a major communicative role, and for many fans the club is a central aspect of their lives. This close relationship between the fans and their club has survived the change in the audience from the more proletarian viewers of the 1960s and 1970s to today's middle-class supporters.
Historical overview
Although football in Germany already cast a spell over the masses after the First World War, a “real” fan scene did not develop until the late sixties. The first fan club in Germany were the “Bochumer boys”, which were founded in 1972 based on the English tradition around VfL. In Great Britain the “Supporter Clubs” have existed since the 1950s, whose members are mainly recruited from young football-loving men and defend the honor of their teams through song and violence.
In the Ruhr area there were riots around soccer games even before the founding of the fan clubs (sociological studies, for example, speak of several hundred disputes a year in the 1920s), but the organized supporters changed the quality of the violence and its reception in the press. Before the 1974 World Cup, riots around football were reported practically every week, which prompted the state to employ hundreds and dog teams in the company of away fans. The result was a further radicalization of the fan scene, while the "normal" supporters turned away from football.
In the Ruhr area, right-wing extremist groups such as the Dortmund “ Borussenfront ” or the Schalke “Gelsenszene” (which later became depoliticized) made headlines that subverted the fan scene and used football as a stage for ideological disputes. The hooligan culture imported from England at the same time, with a martial appearance and mass fights between various fan groups, consolidated the public image of the football fan as a right-wing racket. Today, the fan scenes in Gelsenkirchen and Dortmund are particularly keen to deal with right-wing extremism in the field of football; for example, in spring 2007 the Dortmund fan project and the Schalke club “The ball doesn't matter who kicks it” were awarded the Julius Hirsch Prize of the German Football Association .
After the German success at the 1990 World Cup, the sport regained popularity among the population. The Bundesliga was stylized by private television into an "event" for the whole population, which fell on fertile ground, especially in the football-dominated Ruhr area. Since then, the public has regularly flocked to the stadiums and has repeatedly set new attendance records for the league. The organized fan scenes reacted late to the new developments and tried to distance themselves from the "mainstream". A platform for this was above all offered by the Italian-influenced ultra-movement , whose groups today also have the spokesman for numerous supporters in the Ruhr area. Ultras see themselves as particularly loyal supporters of their respective clubs and see themselves as custodians of tradition in the face of increasing commercialization of football. While many ultras in Germany emphasize their political neutrality, the movement is prone to political extremism due to its reactionary and totalitarian philosophy.
Revierderby
Despite the abundance of football clubs in the Ruhr area and the corresponding number of local derbies in the higher leagues, the games between Borussia Dortmund and FC Schalke 04 have recently emerged as the district derbies. The games between the two most successful clubs in the region have been sold out for many years and electrify the district's football fans like no other duel.
In contrast to major international derbies such as Old Firm or El Superclásico , the rivalry between the two clubs is as young as it is peaceful - it was only after the Second World War that Borussia became a competitor on an equal footing for the Gelsenkirchen team, and the club histories are not so different either than that religious or ideological conflicts between the two clubs could have developed. Both Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund were created in working-class neighborhoods and have had an integrative function for the many Polish and East Prussian immigrants from the start, and even if they have supporters from all social classes today, the clubs continue to symbolize heart and passion as Virtues of the "Ruhrpott".
After three games in the mid-1920s between the two clubs, the first games at a higher level came from 1936 in the Gauliga after BVB had made promotion. At that time, however, Schalke 04 was decisive for football in the entire empire and accordingly without competition in the area, so that the Gelsenkirchen team were mostly able to win the games without much difficulty. Due to the great differences in the strength of the teams, there was initially no real rivalry between the two clubs; after the first Schalke championship in 1934, for example, the train of the championship team in Dortmund train station was cheered frenetically. From there, the "miners" were escorted to the city hall, where they signed the city's golden book.
Overall, BVB lost 14 of 16 games against Schalke in the Gauliga; Even in the seasons 1937/1938 and 1941/1942, when BVB came second in the west behind series winner Schalke, Schalke were not beaten. The only victory before the end of the war was a 1-0 win in October 1943, in which August Lenz was Dortmund's first national player to score the decisive goal. After the end of the war, however, BVB developed into a serious opponent for Schalke 04. Borussia Dortmund won their first game after the end of the war, and in 1947 they won 3-2 in Westphalia. The changing of the guard followed in the era of the Oberliga West; Dortmund became champions three times and also took first place in the "eternal table" ahead of Schalke.
These years are considered to be the origin of the Revier derby, because it was only with Borussia Dortmund that a club was able to establish itself as a serious alternative to Schalke 04 in Ruhr area football in the long term. Since then, the times of success have largely alternated; BVB was the top German team in the sixties and nineties and this is also the case in the 2010s, while Schalke was able to easily set itself apart from Borussia in the seventies. Nevertheless, the games between the two clubs were always a special highlight, and in many cases the respective "underdog" was able to win the games.
Both clubs now have by far the most supporters in the area and the surrounding area, and apart from FC Bayern Munich , no club in Germany is able to keep up with the attendance figures from Schalke and Dortmund. Regularly over 40,000 season tickets sold per season testify to the great enthusiasm of the supporters.
The stadiums in the district
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In the 2019/20 season, first division football will be played in the Ruhr area in Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen, and second division football in Bochum. The clubs marked in red are in the 1st or 2nd Bundesliga, the clubs marked in green are in the third division or the Regionalliga West. The clubs that once played professional football are marked in yellow, but are now below the 4th division. Existing or former professional teams from outside the Ruhr area are gray. |
After the first games took place on, at best, fenced-in meadows, which were surrounded by earth walls depending on the audience's interest, the construction of the first "real" stadiums in the area began in the 1920s ; Although no universal stadiums with swimming lanes and diving platforms were created in the Ruhr area , as requested by Carl Diem , the Secretary General of the responsible Reich Committee, in many cases they were planned with cycling or athletics tracks. The first major stadium construction was the construction of the Wedaustadion in Duisburg, where the city had a wide round without grandstands built according to Diem's plans, which was followed four years later by the Schwelgernstadion just a few kilometers away . The Rote Erde arena was inaugurated in Dortmund in 1928 and is now a listed building, similar to the Vestische arena in Gladbeck that was completed in the same year . Both stadiums are also architecturally significant, they have in particular magnificent entrance buildings and marathon gates and, as in the case of the Dortmund Volkspark, are integrated into an overall design concept.
Where it was not the cities that forced stadium construction, the clubs had to lend a hand themselves; In some cases it was the mines that built stadiums for the local club on their premises ( Mont Cenis in Sodingen 1928, Ewald continuation in Erkenschwick from 1929). In Gelsenkirchen, Schalkes Platz on Grenzstrasse , which only had space for 5,000 fans, was not up to the crowd early on. Nevertheless, it was not until 1928 that the club was able to open its Glückauf arena . In Essen, the 35,000-seat stadium at Uhlenkrug by Schwarz-Weiß was built in 1922, and the stadium at Strünkede Castle was opened in Herne in 1934 . Rot-Weiss Essen only gradually expanded its former sports field into the Georg Melches Stadium . When it opened in 1939, the stadium consisted of a wooden grandstand and a total of 25,000 seats; Germany's first floodlight system was inaugurated there in 1956. From 1990 until the start of complete demolition in March 2012, the stadium was a specialty in Germany, as the west stand had to be demolished due to dilapidation and the construction therefore only consists of three stands.
After the Second World War, most of the destroyed stadiums were rebuilt, and new arenas were created in the vicinity of the colliery associations. The Glück-Auf stadium in Sodingen was completed in 1953 ; The Fürstenberg Stadium was built in Horst-Emscher for the 1948/1949 season , after the first league season had been kicked for ashes. These stadiums were usually not suitable for major events, so Sodingen had to move to Gelsenkirchen in its final rounds of the German championship.
The next big building boom started in the 1970s. Whereas previously large stadiums with a capacity of more than 50,000 spectators were built in many places in Germany, the Ruhr area with the Gelsenkirchen Park Stadium and the Dortmund Westfalen Stadium only got new arenas for the 1974 World Cup. The latter was designed purely as a football stadium and is still the largest of its kind in Germany. While there was 54,000 space at the opening, there is currently space for over 80,000 trailers after several expansion stages. In Bochum, too, the Ruhr Stadium, an arena without running tracks, was built; To this day, the "gem" is considered one of the most beautiful stadiums in Germany. Schalke's Park Stadium, on the other hand, like all major stadiums in the country, had an athletics track and was quickly considered to be as old-fashioned as it was uncomfortable. After the great successes in the nineties, the association began building the “ Arena AufSchalke ” in 1998 , a multifunctional arena on the Berger Feld that opened in 2001. With this building, the club has set new standards in the connection between football and events, but in the opinion of some critics it has also moved far away from its origins as a club for the “little people”. A huge video cube, extendable lawn, countless VIP boxes and the stadium currency “Knappe” testify to the intensive marketing of the sport.
The last major stadium renovation in the Ruhr area was the redesign of the Wedau stadium into a football stadium, which was reopened in 2004. Apart from the Lohrheidestadion in Wattenscheid, which has also been modernized in recent years and is now the most important athletics stadium in the region, the stadiums of the lower-class clubs are in decline. In many places you can indulge in nostalgia, but without extensive renovations, many of the arenas will only be usable to a limited extent in the near future.
Football away from the DFB
Workers soccer
The years between the end of the First World War and the beginning of the Hitler dictatorship were the heyday of workers' sport in Germany . Hundreds of thousands of people did sports under the umbrella of the Workers' Gymnastics and Sports Association , for example in 1930 over 140,000 active people were organized in more than 8,000 soccer teams. The successor organization to the Arbeiter-Turner-Bund, founded in 1893 as a counterpoint to the German Gymnastics Association, which was loyal to the emperor, saw sport as part of political education and emphasized the importance of fairness and camaraderie in sport. Nationalism was frowned upon; Instead, the high point in workers 'sport were the “Workers' Olympics”, in which athletes from all over the world took part.
Despite its many factories and collieries, the Ruhr area was at no time a stronghold of workers' sport in the country. A large part of the workers in the area were immigrants from Poland and predominantly socialized as Catholics, so many of them joined the region's civic associations or the Catholic DJK and did not allow themselves to be won over to their cause by the social democratic or communist workers' sports clubs . Football was also not possible in workers' sport until 1910, like the pure gymnastics associations, the ATB had considered football to be incompatible with its goals and decided not to organize appropriate competitions.
For these reasons, the most successful football clubs in German workers' sport were not based in the Revier. No teams from the Ruhr area took part in the finals for the ATSB national championship, the competition from Hamburg, Berlin, Franconia and Saxony was too strong. Nevertheless, the level of the workers' sports clubs was by no means low compared to the clubs of the DFB, players were repeatedly enticed away by the offer of jobs or other financial incentives.
Workers' sport split in the country at the end of the twenties, after the SPD and KPD had finally fallen out in the course of the 1928 Reichstag election. The ATSB, which was more of a social democratic party, began to exclude oppositional associations; According to official information, 261 of the more than 400 clubs in the Rhineland-Westphalia district remained in the association, the rest joined the combat community for Red Sports Unit founded in 1929 . This was more politicized and in many places openly supported the political actions of the KPD. From 1932 onwards, the increasingly heated clashes between the Red athletes and the police also claimed the first deaths, for example two workers died in clashes with state power in the vicinity of the Ruhrspartakiade in Essen.
Both associations came to an end when the Nazis came to power in 1933. After the fire in the Reichstag at the end of February, numerous functionaries of the Red athletes were imprisoned and murdered, and the ATSB was also banned by the Reich Committee for Physical Exercise. The clubs were forbidden to host games, the active players were only allowed to join the DFB clubs under strict conditions. The illegal red sport organization was initially continued underground, but from 1935 all those involved had been arrested or killed. After the end of the Second World War, a new workers' sports association was not established, and from then on organized football was played exclusively under the umbrella of the DFB.
German youth force
The teams in the district were more successful in the Reich Championship of the German Youth Force than in workers' sports . Three of the four finals took place with the participation of Essen clubs; In 1921 and 1924 the DJK Katernberg was Reichsmeister (initially with a 3-2 win against DJK Ludwigshafen , three years later the DJK Offenbach-Bürgel was defeated 4-2), in 1932 the DJK Adler Frintrop was the DJK Sparta Nürnberg with 2: 5 inferior.
The German Youth Force was founded in 1920 as the umbrella organization for the Catholic associations in Germany and, like workers' sport, tried to enable its members to exercise their bodies without being overly competitive. Usually the sporting activities of each parish were grouped together in a department of the DJK, so that precisely the Rhenish part of the Ruhr area, due to its Catholic character, provided a large number of the association's activities. By the end of the Weimar Republic, the association had developed into the third largest sports association in the country, soccer was played by more than 80,000 people.
In 1933 the association was first brought into line and banned two years later. After the war, two associations were re-established in 1947, which merged in 1961 and still exist today as German youth workers. Unlike in the Weimar Republic, however, the DJK teams are now integrated into the general game operations of the DFB and the other sports associations.
Women's football before 1970
For many decades it was not possible for women to practice sport under the umbrella of the DFB, but also in foreign football associations; Football was considered a male sport and was viewed as alien to female nature. Although women's football was not officially banned by the association in Germany until 1955, the game in public was previously considered improper and dangerous to health. An organized kick was therefore hardly possible in the Ruhr area, if one disregards the few workers' sports clubs that had women in their ranks, as in Essen or Herne.
The prohibition of 1955 was the answer to the establishment of several all-women football teams, which had arisen particularly in the Ruhr area and whose first games had already attracted several thousand spectators. As early as 1951, a women eleven played and trained regularly at Blau-Weiß Oberhausen. The decision of the DFB not only prohibited the clubs from setting up appropriate departments, but also prohibited the use of the sports facilities and the loan of referees and line judges. Nationwide waves were made by an incident that abruptly ended a game between DFC Duisburg-Hamborn and Gruga Essen on July 31, 1955 after twenty minutes - at the intervention of the site owner Hertha Hamborn, the police came up with a raid: "... Football liquidated. This time it was not about equal rights, ” joked the WAZ the next day.
As a consequence, new clubs such as Fortuna Dortmund or Rhenania Essen were founded, which organized themselves in their own associations and switched to urban sports fields. From 1956 international matches were also started; The first game was the 2-1 of the German team in front of 18,000 spectators against the Netherlands in the Mathias Stinnes Stadium in Essen.
Despite all the odds, unorganized women's football became a success story; By the end of the 1960s, around 50,000 female players were active in the country, and more than 150 selection games were played. According to the NRZ, “an average of 5,000 visitors” saw women's games in the Ruhr area in 1956 ; And many young women were as enthusiastic about football as Helga Tönnies , who played for Rhenania Essen until 1960, played her first international game at the age of 17 and ran to the training ground several kilometers away after a shift in an Essen brewery twice a week. After their wedding, she stopped active sport, only to lace up her soccer shoes again as Helga Nell at Rot-Weiß Resser Mark in 1969 and later to move into the West German Cup final with this team.
As early as 1963, the ban was circumvented in some clubs and subdivisions of the DFB, before it was finally removed in 1970 in the course of social changes in Germany and the DFB started regular gaming - albeit initially with special rules, which were gradually dismantled in the following years. allowed. In the first final of the German women's football championship in 1974, DJK Eintracht Erle from Gelsenkirchen was also a club from the Ruhr area, which was defeated 0: 4 by TuS Wörrstadt.
Leisure football and colorful leagues
From the 1970s onwards, unorganized leisure teams emerged in many parts of Germany, which saw themselves as a countermovement to the commercialization of sport and followed on from the tradition of the early days of sport in the country. Since then, there has also been a colorful mix of counter teams, company athletes and street teams in the area, some of whom compete in their own leagues or just play football together on the football field. Despite their heterogeneity, what these teams have in common is that they do not submit to the strict regulations of the association, but place the fun of the game in the foreground of their activities.
The most prominent example of football apart from the DFB today are the colorful leagues , which have been founded in university towns since the 1980s and have their members mainly in the green, alternative milieu. They combine their enjoyment of sport as in workers' sport with criticism of the political situation and especially of the DFB.
The football history in the individual towns of the district
The importance of football for the region can be seen in how many well-known clubs with their respective facets the Ruhr area has produced. The following section gives a little football history in the big cities of the Ruhr area and thus refers to the most important clubs in the area.
Western Ruhr area
| Most successful club | First division seasons | successes |
|---|---|---|
 MSV Duisburg |
Oberliga (11 years), Bundesliga (27 years) | German runner-up in 1964, DFB Cup finalists in 1966, 1975, 1998 and 2011, UEFA Cup semi-finals 1979 |
Duisburg
Until the end of the Oberliga West in 1963, Duisburg was the football stronghold in the Ruhr area. Probably no other city of this size has produced as many first division clubs as the city on the Rhine, and even if the great success of a Duisburg club in national football has not yet materialized, clubs like Meidericher SV , Hamborn 07 or Duisburger SpV are nationwide Term. After all, the West German Football and Athletics Association , to which the Lower Rhine , Middle Rhine and Westphalia regional football associations belong , is also based in Duisburg .
In addition to the Duisburger Spielverein as German runner-up in 1913, SC Preußen Duisburg was one of the top addresses in Lower Rhine football in the years before the First World War . Like the DSV, the Prussians were an upper-class club, and together with the Spielverein, Prussia was the only club that played first-class from the start of the championship games in 1902 until the war-related suspension. The greatest success was the move into the final of the West German Championship in 1909, which was lost 3-2 after extra time against FC Munich-Gladbach . Most of the time, the DSC was inferior to the local rivals from the game club; After the war, other clubs overtook the Prussians, which in 1929 withdrew completely from the championship games of the West German Gaming Association in protest against the usual bonus practice.
At the end of the twenties, Meidericher SV, who only had to admit defeat in the final of the West German championship Schalke 04 in 1929 and also became district champion on the Lower Rhine in 1931 and '32, first attracted attention. However, the Meidericher never qualified for the Gauliga (even the game club was only first class during the Third Reich for the duration of one season), founding members from Duisburg were Duisburg 99 , Hamborn 07 and DFV 08 . Later the Homberger SV , Union 02 Hamborn , Westende Hamborn and Gelb-Weiß Hamborn were Gauligists, so that normally three clubs from the city were represented in the first division. The most successful club of this era was Hamborn 07, which came second in the West in 1933 and was then represented in all eleven seasons in the Gauliga. In 1941/1942 the "Löwen" celebrated their only Lower Rhine championship, but were eliminated in the final round of the German championship against Werder Bremen . In the following season Westende became champions of the Gauliga, a year later the war sports community consisting of Spielverein and 99 won the title.
Even during the time of the Oberliga West, the Duisburg clubs formed the strongest faction in West German football. At first it was Hamborn 07 again, which was able to set the first accents as fourth of the opening season. For the 1949/1950 season, the game club and FV 08 were added, but the latter were relegated straight back to the second division. But the Meidericher SV reached the first class again for the 1951/1952 season since 1933. Despite a total of four clubs in the major league, no Duisburg team could become West Champion. The game club was closest to the title, which was runner-up behind Borussia Dortmund in the west in 1956/1957; Otherwise the clubs were always relegation candidates and had to go into the second division several times. The game club was relegated to the second division between 1951 and 1954 and 1963, Meiderich 1955/1956. Hamborn developed into the “elevator team” in the mid-1950s and rose and descended regularly until the end of the decade.
It was only with luck that Meidericher SV - later MSV Duisburg - received admission to the Bundesliga as a Duisburg representative; Alemannia Aachen in particular fought over the last free place with the Meiderichern. The biggest success of the MSV after 1963 was the runner-up in the first season, otherwise the club played mostly in the lower third of the table. The MSV remained first class until the eighties. This was followed by relegation to the 2nd Bundesliga and the Oberliga, and since the beginning of the nineties the club has been commuting regularly between first and second class.
The other two clubs were transferred to the regional league in 1963, from which Eintracht Duisburg said goodbye in 1969 as a merger between Spielverein and 48/99. Hamborn 07 was able to hold out two years longer in the second class, after which the club remained third class until the early 1990s. During this time, the "zero sevens" found through regular reporting in the TV political magazine private television with Friedrich Küppersbusch even restore national recognition.
In addition to MSV, FCR Duisburg is currently making positive headlines as a women's Bundesliga team. The FCR is one of the most successful clubs in women's football and was among other things German champions in 2000. In addition, the club won the DFB Cup in 1998 and 2009, and won the DFB Indoor Cup in 1996 and 2000. In 2009 the “Lionesses” won the UEFA Women's Cup against Zvezda 2005 Perm . In the 1980s and early 1990s KBC Duisburg was one of the strongest German clubs. The Kasslerfelder won the trophy in 1983 and the championship two years later. In 1990 the club was one of the founding members of the Bundesliga. After relegation from the Bundesliga in 1994, the team disappeared from the scene and the department was dissolved.
Mülheim
The most successful club in town in the years between the world wars was VfB Speldorf . After the club was founded in January 1919, VfB quickly established itself in Mülheim football in the 1920s. The first team of Speldorf around the later national goalkeeper Fritz Buchloh then managed in 1930 promotion to the top division on the Lower Rhine, in which the Speldorfer stayed until 1939. Despite two participations in the promotion round to the Gauliga, it was not enough for promotion to the first class.
In 1946/1947 VfB were first class as Mülheim city champions for one season, but in the following the club played predominantly in the amateur league of the Lower Rhine Football Association. The greatest success in the 1950s was winning the Lower Rhine Championship in 1956, which brought the club to the final of the German amateur championship, in which the Speldorfer, however, lost 3-2 to the Neu-Isenburg game association . In the second division, the club could only hold for one season.
After the war, 1. FC Styrum (later 1. FC Mülheim) began to rise to the top spot in Mülheim football. As early as 1952/1953, the Styrum Niederrhein champions had become, but the club remained third-rate in the further course of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1972, however, the club rose to the Regionalliga West and was able to qualify for the newly established 2nd Bundesliga with two good seasons. The most famous players of this time were Holger Osieck (national coach and world champion 1990) and Norbert Eilenfeldt (later Arminia Bielefeld and 1. FC Kaiserslautern). After relegation in 1976, the club went down a long way, which currently ended in the district league.
After many years in the lower class, VfB Speldorf became the most important club in Mülheim again in the 1980s. Both in the 1983/1984 season and between 2005 and 2008, the club was represented in the Oberliga Nordrhein. With the introduction of the NRW League, the club will only play in the sixth class Niederrheinliga in the 2008/2009 season.
Oberhausen
The football history of Oberhausen is closely linked to the structure of the city, which was created in 1929 as a merger of the three communities Alt-Oberhausen, Osterfeld and Sterkrade . Before that, football clubs had been formed in each of the three municipalities that played in the top division on the Lower Rhine, but could not celebrate any national successes. From Alt-Oberhausen, the Oberhausen-Styrum game association should be mentioned, which played consistently first-class until 1933. In Osterfeld the game club Osterfeld was moderately successful, in Sterkrade the game association 06/07 . The latter failed in 1929 in the final of the Lower Rhine Championship at Meidericher SV .
At the beginning of the 1930s, Rot-Weiß Oberhausen was the successor club of the Styrum game association (in the course of the division of Styrum , 1. FC Styrum was established in Mülheim's urban area , and Rot-Weiß was founded in Oberhausen), making it the city's most important club. The red and whites rose to the Gauliga in 1934, to which they belonged until 1943, but without qualifying for the finals for the German championship. With Willy Jürissen , they also had a national goalkeeper in their ranks.
After the war, in addition to RWO, the Sterkrade game association also made it to the Oberliga West; for economic reasons, however, the game association waived the introduction of the contract player status and remained in the amateur field. The greatest success during this time was participation in the final round of the German amateur championship in 1955. In Osterfeld, the ball game club made the leap from the state league to the second division from 1956 to 1960 and even made it to the final of the amateur championship in 1960, which after a 1: 1 was lost in the first game 3-0 in the replay against Hannover 96 . The BVO ended the season in the second division, however, as bottom of the table.
Until the founding of the Bundesliga, Rot-Weiß remained first or second class and qualified for the Regionalliga West in 1963. In 1969, RWO won the championship there and made it to the first Bundesliga in the playoffs against Freiburg FC . Overall, RWO was represented in the Bundesliga for four seasons, but played only a subordinate role in sporting terms and caused rather unpleasant headlines, especially due to its involvement in the Bundesliga scandal in 1970/1971; Striker Lothar Kobluhn was the top scorer in the Bundesliga in 1970/1971. In the decades that followed, the club was relegated to fourth division, and it wasn't until the end of the 1990s that the club managed to return to the professional sector, when RWO was represented in the second division for several seasons.
Recently, RWO, the top club in Oberhausen, had made it through from the Oberliga to the 2nd Bundesliga between 2006 and 2008, but after being relegated twice in 2012/13, they are now only in the Regionalliga West. Adler Osterfeld was represented in the Oberliga Nordrhein from 1998 to 2005.
Wesel district
Clubs from the Wesel district , in contrast to the clubs from the other Ruhr area regions, never reached the top divisions of German association football. Between 1959 and 1975, VfB Lohberg from Dinslaken played in the Verbandsliga, which was the highest amateur division at the time, and repeatedly just missed promotion to the second division or the Regionalliga West. Later on, MSV Moers , SuS 09 Dinslaken and TuS Xanten , among others, were able to achieve minor successes with participation in the third-class amateur league in North Rhine-Westphalia and in the Oberliga Nordrhein football club . When participating in the DFB Cup, the second or third round could only rarely be reached, for example by VfB Lohberg 1962/1963 and TuS Xanten 1979/1980. Currently the most successful clubs in the district are the clubs TV Jahn Hiesfeld and SV Sonsbeck , which play in the fifth-class Oberliga Niederrhein (as of the 2014/15 season).
Northern Ruhr area
| Most successful club | First division seasons | successes |
|---|---|---|
 FC Schalke 04 |
Gauliga (11 years), Oberliga (16 years), Bundesliga (39 years) | UEFA Cup 1997, German champions (7 times), DFB Cup (5 times) |
Gelsenkirchen
Although the FC Schalke 04 was only in the 1920s the most important club of the city, the Gelsenkirchen football history begins in Schalke : 1896 by students of Schalke School of games and sports established that in the first year against Dortmund FC in 1895 , the first regular in Westphalia. Even if this game and the second leg were lost, SuS Schalke quickly developed into the model club in Gelsenkirchen. The qualification for the A-class of the West German game association was still missed in the years before the war, but the young Schalke working-class children from Westfalia, later FC Schalke 04, took object lessons with the SuS and his sometimes high-profile opponents.
During the years of the Weimar Republic, Gelsenkirchen quickly developed into a football stronghold in the central Ruhr area. In 1921 SC Gelsenkirchen 07 became champions of the Emscherkreisliga and second behind SC Dortmund 95 in the Ruhr district. A year later Union Gelsenkirchen followed the sports club into the newly founded Ruhr League, in which Erle 08 and Buer 07 from the then still independent communities Erle and Buer were represented. By the end of the decade, STV Horst-Emscher , SuS Schalke and Schalke 04 made it into the highest league in the Ruhr area.
Schalke 04 quickly developed into the undisputed top team in the city, but the other teams also remained highly successful until 1945: Union Gelsenkirchen was not only able to win the title in the Ruhr district in the 1930/1931 season when Schalke's first team was suspended, but also themselves qualify for the Gauliga in the 1940/1941 season . Erle 08 (1935 to 1937), the Spielverein Rotthausen (1936 to 1938), the STV Horst (1942/1943) and Alemannia Gelsenkirchen (from 1939) were also represented in the first division.
After the war, little changed in the sporting balance of power in the city. Behind Schalke, Eintracht Gelsenkirchen (created in 1950 as a merger of Union and Alemannia) and STV Horst caused a sensation in the region. The former remained second class throughout the entire league and played from 1963 first in the Regionalliga West, later in the Association League Westphalia. Horst, on the other hand, made it to the league together with Schalke 04 in 1947. With financial support from the Nordstern colliery , they achieved two third and one fourth place in the first few years of the new league and were thus able to position themselves temporarily ahead of their local rivals from Schalke. The relegation in 1954 was followed by another league season (1957/1958) and the surprising win of the German amateur championship in 1967 against Hannover 96 . In 1973, Eintracht and Horst merged to form the Gelsenkirchener Südens club, but they failed to qualify for the 2nd Bundesliga by a long way.
In women's football, FC Schalke 04 achieved some notable successes in the late seventies and early eighties. The team was five times Westphalia champion and two Westphalia Cup winners. Both in the German championship and in the DFB Cup , however, it was the end of the line in the first round. The department was dissolved in the mid-1980s. Before that, the DJK Eintracht Erle reached the first final of the German championship in women's football in 1974, but lost to TuS Wörrstadt 0: 4. At the moment the Erler SV 08 is the highest playing club in the district league in Gelsenkirchen.
Herne / Wanne-Eickel
Herne
Even if Westfalia Herne, currently the most successful player in Herne football, only kicks in the upper league, the city in the middle of the Ruhr area is one of the strongholds of sport in the Revier. And it was Westfalia that was the first club in old Herne to cause a sensation: In 1934, the club rose from Strünkede Castle to the Gauliga Westfalen and stayed there until the end of the war. Although the Hernians were not in a position to seriously endanger series champion Schalke 04 as the title holder, in 1937 they succeeded in being runner-up.
After the war, the great times of SV Sodingen began . The colliery club managed to rise from the lowlands of amateur football to the Oberliga West by 1953 and became the legend of Ruhr area football par excellence. The team's “stars” such as Leo Konopczynski , Johann Adamik or Hans Cieslarczyk came from the immediate vicinity of the Mont Cenis colliery and remained footballers “to touch” throughout their lives. The successes of Sodden in the mid-fifties were therefore based less on the individual class of the individual players and more on solidarity and passion. After the promotion, the SVS was initially fourteenth and just secured relegation, in order to advance to second place in the table in the following season and to reach the qualifying round for the final round for the German championship behind champions Rot-Weiss Essen . After a qualifying victory over SSV Reutlingen 05 , Sodingen was among the top eight and measured itself against football greats such as Hamburger SV , 1. FC Kaiserslautern and BFC Viktoria 1889 , where the team achieved a respectable third place. Participation in the final round of the German championship remained the greatest success in the club's history. After relegation in 1959, the team was able to make a direct resurgence and stay in the major league until 1962, since then the club has only played in the amateur area and is currently represented in the fifth-rate association league.
Westfalia, on the other hand, stayed in professional football for a long time. One year after the rival from the eastern suburb, the club rose to the Oberliga West, to which it belonged until the Bundesliga was founded in 1963. The greatest success was winning the West German championship in 1959, when the comparatively young Herner team around Helmut Benthaus , Hans Tilkowski and Alfred Pyka were able to leave the German champions Schalke 04 behind, among others. At the national level, however, Westfalia was not successful either in 1959 or the following year when it came second in the West.
From 1963 the club played mostly second class and was promoted to the 2nd Bundesliga in 1975. Under patron Eberhard Goldbach, who wanted to market his petrol company Goldin nationwide through Westfalia , Bundesliga football was even dreamed of in Herne in 1978/1979 when many former Bundesliga soccer players were brought to Strünkede Castle. After the missed rise, the bankruptcy of Goldbach's company shook the city; Westfalia gave back its license for the second division after the first day of the 1979/1980 season and was downgraded to the amateur league. Since then, the club has been commuting between the fourth and sixth division and was represented in the newly founded NRW League in the 2008/2009 season.
Wanne-Eickel
In Wanne-Eickel, which was independent until 1975, there are also two clubs that were able to celebrate national successes. Before the Second World War, SpVgg Röhlinghausen was one of the big numbers in Ruhr area football. Raised in 1937, "the Black-Greens from Stratmanns Hof" stayed in the Gauliga Westphalia until the end of the war. The greatest success was third place in the final table in 1942/1943 behind Meister Schalke 04 and VfL Altenbögge . After the war, the club had to withdraw quickly from higher-class football for economic reasons and now plays in the district league A.
It wasn't until the mid-seventies that a club from Wanne-Eickel made a name for itself again: thanks to financial support from sponsor Heitkamp , DSC Wanne-Eickel was promoted to the 2nd Bundesliga in 1978 and stayed in professional football for two years. However, the descent did not come for sporting reasons; The generally only 3,000 spectators in the Wanne-Süd sports park did not justify the financial expenditures for professional football in the city.
Recklinghausen district
In the extensive Recklinghausen district, which extends from the Lower Rhine to the north of Dortmund, SpVgg Herten , founded in 1912, was the first nationally successful club. The "Elf vom Katzenbusch" rose to the Westphalia League in 1927 and qualified as district champion for the final round of the West German Championship in 1929 after defeating Arminia Bielefeld , in which the Hertener Schalke 04 were only slightly defeated 4-5. Three years later the Meidericher SV was the end of the line. After successfully qualifying for the Gauliga Westfalen established in 1933, the club was finally one of the strongest clubs in the region, even if the fourth place achieved in 1937 was the highest ranking in the final ranking of a season in the Gauliga. After relegation in 1939, the game association returned two years later to the Gauliga, but had to go back to the second division in the following season. After the war, the Herteners established themselves in the 2nd League West, to which they belonged from its foundation in 1947 to its dissolution in 1963. With the descent from the Regionalliga West in 1964, the time of higher-class football ended in Herten.
The leading association in the region became after 1945 the SpVgg Erkenschwick . As early as 1943, the club had made it to the Gauliga and was fourth straight away, but due to the war, the 1943/1944 season initially remained the Erkenschwicker's only first-class season. In 1947 the club became a founding member of the Oberliga West and was able to establish itself in the new league thanks to economic support from the Ewald mine . The most successful season at Stimberg Stadium was 1949/1950 when the game association finished seventh. The most prominent players of this time were Julius Ludorf , Siegfried Rachuba and Horst Szymaniak - Ludorf always stayed at Stimberg , Rachuba moved to Prussia Münster in 1949 as part of the “100,000 Mark Storm” , Szymaniak went to Wuppertaler SV in 1955 and later to Italy. Erkenschwick was already second class that year, in 1953 the relegation from the league followed, which found its continuation in 1957 with the descent into the amateur camp.
From 1954 onwards, TSV Marl-Hüls continued the successful tradition of clubs from the Recklinghausen area , which as a colliery club owned by Auguste Victoria that year (still as TSV Hüls) secured the Westphalia championship and won 6: 1 over the Spielvereinigung Neu- Isenburg became German amateur champion. The Hülser continued their successes in the 2nd League West and in 1960 they made it to the top division. As the only club in the league, TSV did not apply for the Bundesliga in 1963 and voluntarily joined the regional league, to which the Hülser belonged until 1970. Since then, the club has played in the lower amateur classes.
Also in the late 1950s and early 1960s the Sportfreunde Gladbeck were represented in the second division. The rise succeeded in 1957 only because of the waiver of SpVg Beckum , which had become Westphalian champions after two playoffs. There the sports fans consistently occupied midfield places; In 1962/1963 they missed qualifying for the Regionalliga West as tenth by just two points. The club remained an association league until 1965, and since then the club has played predominantly in the regional and district leagues in the region.
With the rise of 1969 in the Regionalliga began the second big time of the game association Erkenschwick. The club from the smallest regional league town in history played continuously in the regional league until the 2nd Bundesliga North was founded in 1974 and was thus able to qualify for the new substructure of the Bundesliga. After relegation in 1976, the game association returned to the second division in 1980, but was unable to collect enough points to qualify for the single-track second division that was founded a year later. Since then, the club has been represented in the higher amateur classes and currently plays like VfB Hüls in the Oberliga Westfalen.
Recklinghausen itself is a footballing “no man's land”. The city's big clubs merged with one another several times and were never able to unite the necessary number of supporters to fill the Hohenhorst stadium , which can hold 30,000 spectators . The last time 1. FC Recklinghausen played in the Oberliga Westfalen until 1992, after the bankruptcy in 1996, however, the city's top-class clubs can only be found in the district league. The top-class club is currently (2008) FC 96 Recklinghausen, which has been promoted to the association league. Something similar can be said about Castrop-Rauxel: this medium-sized town in the heart of the area has never had a club in the top German league. The best known is SV Castrop 02 , (after a merger in 1962 with SG Erin 11 to SG Castrop) from which Alfred Niepieklo later emerged as a two-time German champion. Arminia Ickern won the Westphalia championship for amateurs in 1952. The most famous footballer from the ranks of this club is Klaus Fichtel . The heyday of Castrop football was, as in many cities in the Ruhr area, the 1950s, when three Castrop teams (besides Castrop 02 and Arminia Ickern, VfB Habinghorst ) played in the association league.
In women's football, the FFC Flaesheim-Hillen from Haltern am See was able to sniff the Bundesliga air for two years. In 2001, the team finished fifth and reached the final of the DFB Cup. Despite a 1-0 half-time lead, the Flaesheimers lost 2-1 to 1. FFC Frankfurt . The club subsequently suffered from financial difficulties, so that negotiations with FC Schalke 04 over a license transfer. When this failed, the association had to file for bankruptcy.
SV Zweckel from Gladbeck is currently the most successful club in the district as a top division club.
Central Ruhr area
| Most successful club | First division seasons | successes |
|---|---|---|
 Red and white food |
Gauliga (6 years), Oberliga (13 years), Bundesliga (7 years) | German champion 1955, DFB-Pokal 1953 |
Bottrop
The most important football club in Bottrop is VfB , which was second class for many years between 1920 and 1970 and now plays in the seventh class district league. The club is considered an "eternal runner-up" because for many years it was one of the strongest clubs in the second division or the regional division and yet never - if you ignore the time in the Gauliga Niederrhein at the beginning of the twenties and between 1931 and 1933 - made the leap to excellence.
The VfB was founded by the merger of the footballers from BV 04 with the more bourgeois club Turn- und Volksspiele Bottrop in 1919. Under the direction of the middle runner Raimond Zwinz, who had previously moved from Nuremberg to the Ruhr area, the new club quickly established itself Name and made it into the Gauliga right on time for the inauguration of the Jahnstadion in 1923. After the rapid relegation, VfB was only able to play first class again in 1931; with the restructuring of the league system ended two years later, however, the time in the first division. The club belonged to the district class as a substructure for the Gauliga until the end of the war, as it regularly had to admit defeat to the competition of the industrial and mining associations of Westphalia in the promotion campaign.
Even after 1945 little changed for the club's supporters: Although VfB was regularly one of the strongest clubs in its class, it failed to make it to the top division every year. Between 1951 and 1963 VfB Bottrop played continuously in the 2nd League West; despite several autumn championships, the second place in the table, which is necessary for promotion to the league, was never achieved. In 1952 they failed in the promotion game at SpVgg Erkenschwick , under coach Willi Multhaup , who worked for VfB from 1954, three third places in a row prevented promotion. In 1955 they were defeated by the Rheydter Spielverein in the last league game with 1: 2, a year later the second place was lost by a 0: 2 at relegated VfB 03 Bielefeld . After the third disappointment in 1957, Multhaup left the club, which was subsequently more likely to be found in the relegation battle and, significantly, was not able to win the championship in the second division until 1963. Due to the introduction of the Bundesliga, however, the club remained second-rate and was only incorporated into the newly founded Regionalliga West.
There VfB Bottrop developed into the “elevator team”; in the following seven years, the club rose four times and three times. After 1969, the club remained represented in association and major leagues for many years, but did not return to the field of contract football and disappeared from 1986 in the lowlands of amateur football.
In the recent past, VfB Kirchhellen from the Kirchhellen district incorporated in 1975 was the most successful club in town. After decades in the lower classes of the Westphalian amateur area, VfB managed to move up from the district to the upper league between 1991 and 1998, in which the first team played until 2001. After relegation, however, VfB Kirchhellen was passed through to the district league.
eat
As the first club in Essen , the Essener SV 99 was founded in Huttrop in 1899 and was able to celebrate regional successes at the beginning of the 20th century. The most successful season in the club's history was the 1902/1903 season, which led the club to the finals of the West German championship. Until the end of the Weimar Republic , the club played first class, but quickly lagged behind the Essener Turnerbund in terms of local importance.
The ETB, the game department, as part of the clean separation split off between the gymnasts and other sports mid-1920s as SC Schwarz-Weiss Essen, and since the reunification of both teams in 1937 its present name ETB Schwarz-Weiß Essen bears, had his Home in Bredeney in the south of the city and, like the ESV, came from the middle-class milieu. The Turnerbund was founded in 1881, the football department was established in 1900 and has participated in the West German championship games since 1902. The greatest success before the First World War was the participation in the decider for the West German Championship in April 1912, which was lost 1: 2 against the Cologne BC 01. Even after the war, the men from Uhlenkrug qualified several times for the final round of the West German Championship, but were never able to win it. Even the final round of the German championship was regularly missed by a narrow margin, only in 1925 black and white had been able to qualify as second in the west, but were eliminated with 1: 3 against FSV Frankfurt .
1926 was the most successful year in the club history of BV Altenessen 06 , which not only won the title in the Ruhr district championship ahead of Schwarz-Weiß, but also reached the final round of the German championship as runner-up in West Germany, in which the Altenessen team were eliminated in the first round .
The first great era of black and white Essen ended in the late 1920s, and the other clubs in the city were not among the big names in Germany during the National Socialist era. Although the ETB remained first class as a member of the Gauliga Niederrhein until the end of the 1942/1943 season , apart from three runner-up championships, no titles were won. The rise of the three big clubs from the north of Essen, TuS Helene , Sportfreunde Katernberg and Rot-Weiss Essen , to the Gauliga initially did not lead to any significant success, only Helene was able to win the German championship in 1942 as the title holder of the Niederrheingau to qualify.
After the Second World War, regular play began again in Essen in autumn 1945, which consisted of district championships in the first season. After the game year 1946/1947 in the Ruhr district league , the Sportfreunde Katernberg were able to qualify as champions for the Oberliga West , in which they remained until the end of the 1954/1955 season. Sports fans fared no differently than most of the other mining clubs in the area, which celebrated their greatest sporting successes, especially in the years after the end of the war, but began to lose importance from the mid-1950s.
One year after the Sportfreunde Katernberg, Rot-Weiss Essen rose again to the top German league and quickly developed into one of the financially strongest clubs in the west under the patron and honorary chairman Georg Melches . In the summer of 1951, the later national players Fritz Herkenrath and Helmut Rahn moved to the club from Bergeborbeck ; In the following season, RWE won the championship in the Oberliga West and reached the final of the German championship. A year later, the DFB Cup was brought to Hafenstrasse, and two years later Rot-Weiss Essen celebrated winning the only German championship to date.
The ETB Schwarz-Weiß also played in the major league for a long time and celebrated the greatest success in the club's long history by winning the DFB Cup in 1959 . Nevertheless, the decline of Essen football began by the 1960/1961 season at the latest. Black-White was relegated from the league for the last time, a year later Red-White followed the team from Uhlenkrug to the 2nd League West. Accordingly, both clubs were not involved when the Bundesliga was founded in 1963 and had to make do with the second division in the Regionalliga West .
While RWE made it to the Bundesliga several times (most recently the team relegated from Hafenstrasse to the second division in 1977) and was still active in the second division until 2007, black and white has only been in the fourth or fifth division for many years. After the dissolution of the Regionalliga West in 1974, the ETB was represented in the newly founded 2. Bundesliga North until 1978, since then the club has not appeared nationwide. In the 2008/2009 season, RWE will play in the fourth-class Regionalliga West, black and white in the newly founded NRW-Liga. Instead, the SGS Essen women's team has now established itself as the first team in Essen in the women's Bundesliga .
Southern Ruhr area
| Most successful club | First division seasons | successes |
|---|---|---|
 VfL Bochum |
Gauliga (7 years), Oberliga (7 years), Bundesliga (34 years) | Cup finalist 1968 and 1988, two UEFA Cup participation |
Bochum / Wattenscheid
Bochum
The history of football in Bochum has few high points compared to the other cities in the Ruhr area; national successes could not be achieved, and regional exclamation marks were also rarely used.
Until the mid-1930s, SV Langendreer 04 was the most successful club in town. Founded in 1920 as a merger club, the team belonged to the Gauliga for ten years, but could not win any titles. After the war, the SVL celebrated its greatest success in 1957 when the reigning German champions Borussia Dortmund were defeated in the cup .
The rise of VfL Bochum to become the most important football team in Bochum began in 1938 when TuS Bochum 08 (which had had a sports field on Castroper Strasse since 1919, where VfL's home stadium is today) with TV 1848 and Germania Bochum became the new club for Physical exercise was forcibly fused. After the Second World War, the club was a member of the Oberliga West for a total of seven seasons , but had not qualified for the Bundesliga in 1963 . Under President Ottokar Wüst in the late 1960s the promotion to the top German league was tackled with power; In addition to the commitment of coach Hermann Eppenhoff , the construction of the Ruhr Stadium was an important step towards establishing VfL in professional football.
After being promoted to the Bundesliga in 1971 (before qualifying for the cup final in 1968), VfL was able to stay in the Bundesliga for 22 years, but remained without title wins in the championship or the DFB Cup. After the first descent in 1993, VfL then developed into an "elevator team", with five ascents and four more descents. However, participation in the UEFA Cup was achieved twice, in 1997 and 2004 VfL was fifth in the Bundesliga.
Apart from VfL and Langendreer 04 only the DJK TuS Hordel and Vorwärts Kornharpen are reasonably successful clubs today ; both clubs have played in the then fourth-class league several times in recent years.
Wattenscheid
In the early days of football in Germany, SV Höntrop was the most important club in the city, which was independent until 1975. Founded in 1926 as a merger club, the Höntropers were successful in the Gauliga for many years and even took second place in the final table twice (1934 and 1935) behind the multiple German champions FC Schalke 04 . After the war, the club played in the newly founded amateur league of Westphalia in the 1950/1951 season, but was relegated directly and has only been represented in the lower class since then.
After the descent of the Höntropians from the amateur league, the rise of the two clubs from Günnigfeld , namely the Union and the DJK Westfalia, began. Both clubs, which have now merged to form VfB Günnigfeld , were successful in amateur football, Union barely missed promotion to the 2nd League West in 1957, and Westfalia won the title of association champion several times in the German youth force in the 1960s.
The rise of SG Wattenscheid 09 to the most important football club in the city began in the mid-1950s, when the entrepreneur Klaus Steilmann moved from Berlin to Wattenscheid and started as a patron and president of SG 09. After the rise of the black and white in the Regionalliga West in the summer of 1969, the expansion of the Lohrheidestadion , which had previously belonged to the local rival Rot-Weiß Leithe, began, and the 09ers established themselves in professional football. The club's greatest success was undoubtedly its promotion to the Bundesliga , to which the club could belong from 1990 to 1994. At that time, the team around Uwe Tschiskale and Souleyman Sané excited with fresh offensive football and in 1993 - much to the delight of the many Wattenscheid local patriots - even rose to the top-class club of the city of Bochum when VfL had to take the bitter step into the second division. Since then, however, things have been going downhill both physically and financially; after Steilmann's departure as a patron, the club was passed through to the association league. In the 2008/2009 season, the SGW was a founding member of the NRW League.
The women of SG Wattenscheid 09 made it into the women's Bundesliga in 1994 . After the immediate relegation, the club belonged to the then second-class regional league for many years and qualified in 2004 for the new 2nd Bundesliga . In the two previous seasons, the team finished fourth; in the summer of 2007 followed the renewed promotion to the Bundesliga.
Ennepe-Ruhr district
With the exception of VfL Witten , who was bottom of the table in the first season of the newly founded Oberliga West in 1947/1948 , no club from the region on the southern edge of the Ruhr area could qualify for the first two leagues. The people of Witten benefited from the good youth work that the club had successfully carried out before the Second World War; the team that was in the first half of the 1946/1947 season autumn champions of the Landesliga Westfalen, consisted almost exclusively of "Witten boys". After the episode in the league and the two following years in the second division, the club was never able to build on the successes of the immediate post-war period.
In the sixties and seventies, TuS Hattingen celebrated its greatest successes as the highest Westphalian amateur class with a total of six seasons in the association league. The fusion club was created in 1945 from a total of nine clubs after the British occupation forces had only allowed one club in Hattingen in 1945 . The rise of 1969 came at the end of a steep development of the club, which only rose from the district league in 1958 and gradually made a name for itself in Westphalia. After relegation in 1975, things went downhill again just as quickly; in 1977 the district league A was reached again; today the club plays in the district league.
The great times of VfL Gevelsberg began practically at the same time as Hattingen's crash , and in 1976 it was able to secure promotion to the association league. The winning goal scorer in the decisive game against SG Castrop was youth player Joachim Benfeld , who later moved to Bayern Munich and won the European Cup in 1988 with KV Mechelen . In 1978 VfL qualified third for the newly founded amateur Oberliga Westfalen and in 1980 was on the verge of promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga. After rank two in 1981, the following year was relegated to the association league, to which the club belonged for eleven years. In 1991 the league was reached again, four years later the relegation took place again. The club was heavily indebted to the district league A. At the beginning of the 2005/2006 season, VfL merged with local rivals Sportfreunde Eintracht Gevelsberg. The successor club FSV Gevelsberg plays in the 2007/2008 season in the district league.
TSG Sprockhövel is currently the strongest team in the region; after several seasons in the Oberliga from 2000, the club is now active in the Westphalia League.
Hagen
Football in Hagen is dominated by two clubs, of which SSV Hagen is the more successful as the successor to the former Gauligist Deutscher SC. The football division of the club was founded in 1905 as Hagener FC, in 1933 the club became DSC after the merger with Hagen 11, which was forced by the National Socialists. Its first team was a founding member of the Gauliga Westfalen, where it achieved its best result in sixth place in 1934. A year later, she was relegated to the district class, in which she was represented, apart from the renewed interlude in the Gauliga 1940/1941, until the end of the war.
After the war, the two fusion clubs separated again; Hagen 11 became independent under the old name, the remaining club operated from now on as SSV Hagen. In 1950 the footballers were promoted to the then double-track 2nd League West, but with the unification of the two leagues in the 1952/1953 season, the club was relegated to the third division. In 1960, the SSV was champion of its association league relay, but only rose again to the second division after the Westphalia champion BV Selm , who was able to defeat Hagen in the playoffs for the Westphalian title, resigned. As fifteenth, however, the club had to relegate directly and later also missed the qualification for the newly founded Regionalliga West. SSV Hagen was only promoted to this in 1966; Despite an average of almost 7,000 spectators in the Ischelandstadion , relegation was narrowly missed. In the following years, the first team played mostly in the Westphalian association and state leagues, in 1988 the club disbanded for financial reasons. The football division was only re-established in 1993, but quickly established itself again in the higher areas of amateur football and is currently a national league team.
In the nineties Hasper SV developed into a serious contender for promotion to the Regionalliga West; after promotion to the league in the summer of 1994, the club was placed under the top five four times and was runner-up in 1997 behind Sportfreunde Siegen . After relegation in 1999, the club played in the association league for several years and is now back in the regional league together with local rivals from SSV.
Eastern Ruhr area
| Most successful club | First division seasons | successes |
|---|---|---|
 Borussia Dortmund
|
Gauliga (8 years), Oberliga (16 years), Bundesliga (40 years) | Champions League and World Cup 1997, European Cup Winners' Cup 1966, German champions (8 ×), DFB Cup (3 ×) |
Dortmund
For many decades, football in Dortmund has been dominated by Borussia , which became the top German team after the end of the Second World War. Before the war, but also in the late 1940s and 1950s, other associations in the city celebrated regional and national successes.
The most important club in Dortmund at the beginning of the 20th century was the Dortmund Football Club 1895 , which was founded on May 10, 1895 as one of the first football clubs in the Ruhr area. In contrast to Borussia and many other clubs in the city, the DFC came from the south of Dortmund, a rather middle-class residential area. Together with BV 04 , with which they merged to form the Dortmund SC 95 in 1913 , they ensured the first successes of Dortmund clubs on a supraregional level; Before the First World War, the ball game club played several times for the West German championship, in 1921 the fusion club Ruhrgaumeister and reached the final for that title.
Before BVB was promoted to the Gauliga in 1936, but in some cases even afterwards, several clubs fought for dominance in Dortmund football. In addition to the DSC, which became first class for political reasons and without sporting qualifications after the Gauliga was founded in 1933, there were VfL Hörde (in 1932 the Hörder were the first Dortmund club to defeat FC Schalke 04), Alemannia Dortmund (which in the 1920s regularly recorded four-digit audience numbers) and TBV Mengede (in 1939 the TBV only missed promotion to the Gauliga due to a 1: 3 home defeat against VfB 03 Bielefeld ) important rivals of Borussia.
Most successful at this time, however, was Arminia Marten's team , who made it to the Gauliga in 1937 and only had to return to the second division in 1941. To this day, a goalless 0-0 in the 1938/1939 season against eventual German champions Schalke 04 and a 10-0 win against BVB two years later are considered the most important successes in the club's history.
After the Second World War, in addition to Borussia, only TBV Mengede was able to qualify for the highest Westphalian league, but after relegation in 1950, the club disappeared into the lower classes of the amateur area. Instead, the great times of Hombrucher FV 09 began , which rose to the 2nd division West in 1949 and only just missed promotion to the upper league the following year . In the following seasons, the team established itself in amateur football and won the German amateur championship in 1958 with a 3-1 win against ASV Bergedorf 85 . Even after the founding of the Bundesliga , Hombruch 09 remained an important representative of Dortmund in German football; only after the club missed promotion to the Regionalliga West on the last match day in 1970 due to a 3-2 defeat at Westfalia Herne did the club's slow relegation begin.
Since then, successes for Dortmund clubs in German amateur football have been few and far between; With the exception of DJK Hellweg Lütgendortmund , which was third-rate in the 1980s, and VfR Sölde , which played in the amateur league for several years in the 1990s and only narrowly failed to advance to the 2nd Bundesliga , the city's clubs provide aloof Borussia's successes only caused a sensation through their outstanding youth work. In addition to TSC Eintracht Dortmund, the successor club of DSC 95, whose A-youth has played in the Westphalia League for many years, above all TuS Eving-Lindenhorst as the home club of prominent footballers such as Michael Zorc , Stefan Klos and Lars Ricken . The TuS was also represented in the highest Westphalian amateur class for many years in the 1960s and 1970s.
In women's football, SG Lütgendortmund is currently number one in the city. In 2002 the team made it to the regional league and two years later, with a little luck, qualified for the newly introduced 2nd Bundesliga . After two years in this class, however, the team had to relegate again, but managed to get promoted again for the 2008/2009 season.
Unna district
The regional environment of Dortmund has also been strongly influenced by Borussia Dortmund's influence since the end of the war, so that in the past few decades no clubs in the region have been able to stay in higher leagues for a long time. The most successful was the Spielvereinigung Holzwickede , which won the German amateur championship in 1976 with a 1-0 win against VfR Bürstadt and was last in the third division as an amateur league team in the early 1990s.
In Lünen , north of Dortmund, it was initially BV Brambauer that was important at the regional level. From 1934 to 1945 as well as in the first post-war years, the "small BVB" was a member of the top division in Westphalia, in 1961 the final of the Westphalia Championship was only just lost to Arminia Bielefeld . Two years later, local rivals Lüner SV , who won a 3-1 win against VfB Bielefeld, were West German champions and were promoted to the regional league, in which the club remained with interruptions until 1973.
During the Second World War, the “Red Hussars” from VfL Altenbögge , which is based in a district of Bönens , were at least equal to Borussia and represented in the Gauliga for several years. The promotion in the summer of 1941 was followed by a good fourth place; The club finished the last two regular seasons as runner-up. In particular, the connection to the Koenigsborn colliery made many players indispensable even in the decisive war years. After 1945, the club was initially represented in the regional league, but could no longer achieve national success and disappeared from the mid-1960s into the amateur sector.
Hamm
In Hamm , on the outskirts of the Ruhr area, the Hammer Spielvereinigung quickly became the city's most important club. The fusion club of Hammer FC and Hammer SV 04 was temporarily the largest football club in Westphalia after the First World War, won the regional championship in 1920, but failed in the final round of the West German championship to Borussia Mönchengladbach . As a result, the club from the bourgeois east of the city lagged behind the up-and-coming clubs VfR Heessen (who played in the second-rate district league from 1938) or VfL Altenbögge and only found its way back to success in the 1950s when the leap in 1957 the association league succeeded.
There the club gradually developed from a relegation candidate to a candidate for promotion to the Regionalliga West, which succeeded in the season 1965/1966 under coach Arthur Gruber . A coin decided after it had been 2-2 after extra time in the playoff for the title against SSV Hagen . The season 1966/1967 remained the only one in the regional league, after the direct relegation, the club remained third class again for many years. In 1978 he was relegated to the regional league.
At the same time, the rise of SC Eintracht Hamm began , which led the club at the beginning of the 1980s to the Oberliga Westfalen. Eintracht, which was formed in 1970 as a merger club from TuS and VfR Heessen, was able to invest heavily thanks to its close ties to Hammer Bank, and between 1979 and 1981 made it through from the state to the top league. The greatest successes were the two Westphalia Championships in 1983 and 1985, which, however, could not be crowned with a leap into the second Bundesliga in the subsequent promotion rounds. After financial irregularities with the main sponsor, which quickly spread to the club, Eintracht's senior league time ended in the summer of 1987. Today, SV Eintracht Heessen, which emerged in 2007 from the merger of SC Eintracht Hamm with SV 26 Heessen, plays in the regional league; but the Hammer Spielvereinigung, as a NRW league team, is once again the flagship of Hammer football.
literature
- The football fans from the area - Rot-Weiss Oberhausen, FC Schalke 04, VfL Bochum, Borussia Dortmund, Rot-Weiss Essen, MSV Duisburg, SG Wattenscheid 09. Straw, 1993, ISBN 3-9801874-7-0 .
- Wolfgang Emscher: Ruhr area grandstand - city history and football on the Ruhr and Emscher. Viehweger, Essen, 2005, ISBN 3-89861-463-8 .
- Wolfgang Ettlich : The sun rose in the west: Little stories of coal, steel and football in the Ruhr area. Ruhr, Essen, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89861-694-2 .
- Siegfried Gehrmann: Football, clubs, politics - on the sports history of the area 1900–1940. Hobbing, Essen, 1988, ISBN 3-920460-36-7 .
- Dirk Hallenberger: Revier football in literature. In: Hermann Beckfeld (Ed.): ... the boss continues to play in heaven. Football stories from the Ruhr area. Henselowsky Boschmann, Bottrop 2006 ISBN 3-922750-62-1 .
- Torsten Haselbauer and Uwe Wick: Ruhr Area Football Region : Catalog for the exhibition. Ed .: Football and Athletics Association Westphalia (FLVW) and Willibald Gebhardt Institute (WGI), Göttingen, 2005, ISBN 3-89533-507-X .
- Hartmut Hering (Ed.): In the land of a thousand derbies. The football history of the Ruhr area. The workshop, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-89533-372-7 .
- Sebastian Kisters: "Ruhrpott, Ruhrpott!" - How the European Cup triumphs from Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund changed the image and identity of the Ruhr area . Geographical Institute of the Ruhr University Bochum. Materials for spatial planning, Volume 56, ISBN 3-925143-27-0 .
- Rolf Lindner and Heinrich Th. Breuer: They are not all Beckenbauer - on the social history of football in the Ruhr area. Syndicate, Frankfurt am Main, 1979, ISBN 3-8108-0073-2 .
- Klaus-Hendrik Mester: Football lives in the Ruhr area. A journey through time through 13 cities full of football passion . Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2014. ISBN 978-3-942468-18-3 .
- Dietmar Osses (ed.): From Kuzorra to Özil. The history of football and migration in the Ruhr area (= book accompanying the exhibition of the LWL industrial museum in the Hanover colliery ). Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8375-1484-1 .
- Ralf Piorr (Ed.): The pot is round. The lexicon of district football. Klartext, Essen - Volume 1 ( Die Chronik 1945-2005 , 2005) ISBN 3-89861-358-5 , Volume 2 ( Die Vereine , 2006) ISBN 3-89861-356-9 .
- Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling: The fame, the dream and the money: The story of Borussia Dortmund. The workshop, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89533-480-4 .
Documentary film
- Wolfgang Ettlich: The sun rose in the west (film documentary about football in the Revier), Rough Trade Distribution GmbH, 2003
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hering, p. 30.
- ↑ Hering, pp. 34–43.
- ↑ cf. Hering, p. 79 ff.
- ↑ Hering, p. 103.
- ↑ Hering, p. 112.
- ↑ Forgotten radio pioneer The man who brought football radio. Spiegel Online / SPIEGELnet GmbH, accessed on November 17, 2015 .
- ^ Hering, p. 154.
- ↑ "The fact that Schalke was instrumentalized by Nazi propaganda does not mean that the players and officials all were confessing Nazis." On Football: Schalke 04 and National Socialism. ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Hering, p. 171 f.
- ↑ Stefan Goch and Norbert Silberbach: Between blue and white lies gray - FC Schalke 04 in the time of National Socialism , Klartext-Verlagsgesellschaft, 2005, ISBN 3-89861-433-6 , p. 206 ff.
- ↑ Hering, p. 179.
- ↑ Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling: Die Bayern - from club to corporation - The history of a record master , Die Werkstatt GmbH, Göttingen, 1997, ISBN 3-89533-203-8 , p. 66.
- ^ Hering, p. 195.
- ^ Hering, p. 216.
- ^ Hering, p. 223.
- ↑ Hering, p. 261.
- ↑ Hering, p. 284 f.
- ^ Hering, p. 287.
- ↑ Hering, p. 291.
- ^ Hering, p. 297.
- ↑ Hering, p. 319.
- ↑ Hering, p. 320.
- ↑ Hering, p. 330 f.
- ↑ cf. Borussia Dortmund and the sources given in the sections on the recent club history.
- ↑ Interview with Franz Stuke, Professor at the Ruhr University Bochum ( Memento from February 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Hering, p. 350.
- ↑ ibid.
- ↑ http://www.bpb.de/themen/4IFKR4,0,0,Fu%DFball_und_Rechtsextremismus_in_Europa.html
- ↑ http://www.bpb.de/themen/WPFOXF,0,0,Ultras_und_Supporter.html
- ↑ Schulze-Marmeling, p. 277 f.
- ^ Association history ( Memento from December 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ cf. Hering, p. 390 ff.
- ^ Hering, p. 138.
- ↑ Hering, p. 141.
- ↑ Hering, p. 142 f.
- ^ Hering, p. 147.
- ↑ Rise of women's football, in: Information on political education (Issue 290).
- ^ Eduard Hoffmann / Jürgen Nendza: Laughed, banned and celebrated. On the history of women's football in Germany. Landpresse, Weilerswist 2005, p. 26.
- ↑ Hoffmann / Nendza, p. 28.
- ↑ Women's football in Germany, in: Dossier on the 2006 Football World Cup, Federal Agency for Civic Education and Hoffmann / Nendza, p. 32.
- ↑ ibid
- ↑ Hoffmann / Nendza, p. 32.
- ↑ Hoffmann / Nendza, p. 36.
- ↑ Women's football in Germany, in: Dossier on the 2006 World Cup, Federal Center for Political Education.
- ^ Hering, p. 173.
- ↑ cf. Hering, p. 266 f.
- ↑ Hering, p. 93.
- ^ Piorr (vol. 2), p. 116.
